Glowing Guardian: The consensus seems to be that he's too good, but I'm not convinced that the problem is with Rogues instead of GG. Absolution taxes your inventory and 'soft' xp in a very interesting way and I'd hate to see it go.

I'd say the real issue is that GG is too good if found at 1st level and approaches uselessness if found at 4th or higher.

Earthmother: I like Earthmother, but can't justify using her for anything but novelty trick shots. She stone cold does not work on VICIOUS dungeons. They seem to be designed to thwart her. They feature long straight corridors where even a single plant can completely cut you off (Clearance does not help, because you need to clear a specific plant, not ten random ones). The mutliple screens means that Greenblood will never be useful. Her best power, the Clearance mana spike, cannot be used on any of the VICIOUS dungeons, either because you get cut off from your plants or because the boss has Retaliate: Fireball.

It would be nice if she had some kind of 'portable' power that you could take with you without needing constant access to her altar (Vineform doesn't count because it doesn't scale hard enough for VICIOUS, believe me I've tried). But I think she also needs a more precise way to deal with blockages. No other deity is so completely shut out by map design the way that she is.

Also, could we have some kind of indicator on how much piety we stand to gain from Plantation? Counting bloodpools is no fun but is required for optimal play.

JJ: I'm just not feeling it. Petition is too expensive and is just not interesting. I've tried ignoring it and it is never worth it. There isn't any sense of choice like you have with the other gods. Maybe if Petition gave you some kind of minor bonus for every punishment that you've endured, a la Patches? That way, the longer you let yourself suffer, the more power you get rewarded with.

JJ also has a similar problem to GG in that he is so completely dependent on early discovery. It's even worse because you can't just find him a first level, you have to find him within the first quarter of the map or so. What if JJ rolled the punishment/piety dice for every discovered item when you join, all in one glorious burst of chaos? The piety gain should probably be scaled down to correct for overlapping punishments, but it would be nice for a last minute JJ to actually do something.

Binlor: Stone Heart really needs to go back to affecting hidden monsters. The changes to how Binlor uses walls has really brought this boon in line and now it is over nerfed. I've tried to use it and I've always regretted it.

We could also really use some kind of wall-o-meter so we can tell how close we are to qualifying for the next boon.

Pactmaker: Does anyone use Spirit Pact? I thought it would be awesome for my punchomancer build but oh my god the piety cost is outrageous. I can get one complete conversion for the same cost as Blood Shield? No thanks. It's not even a good deal for Earthmother, who is the queen of cheap piety and over priced boons.

Regarding Pactmaker: I usually regret taking any pact other than Scholar's Pact or Alchemist's Pact. The first because the effect is really nice, and the second because it's easily controlled. The others are massive piety drains for benefits that (IMO) aren't worthwhile. And truthfully, on most runs, when I see Pactmaker I just see a waste of an altar slot because it can't be desecrated (but I suppose it's nice for a Consensus when desperate for a healing boon or something).

GG: People seem to have caught up to what I've been doing with him for aages. He's actually pretty useful as a late-game sort-it-out drop-in (Cleansing especially is great). He's no more powerful than he has been for a long time, people are just using him properly. He's not really useful as a monogamous god if you get him mid-game but I think his bookend value makes up for that.

Earthmother: Had the same thoughts on vicious viability as you. Though my first DL win was with a clearance spike... Main thing is that at vicious level everyone preps a god so they're busy using someone else who's solid throughout when they find an EM altar they could use and drop. Earthmother is really decent on hard-level maps. I never did manage to get that Earthmother Paladin down...

GG + Body Pact is how I beat the vicious Tower (other than with a Vampire). Don't take that away from me.

I actually don't think GG is too good, mind, but then I have my biases. The thing is, he has a fantastic early game, a decent mid-game if you started worshiping him early, and IMO a fairly terrible late game unless you really need a magic attack (GG -> Dracul is a perverse but incredibly desirable path, but unless I've literally crushed the dungeon I will generally take anyone as a conversion option, just so I can quaff my damn potions). Other than tweaking Absolution, I think my suggestion would be to change his on-worship piety to be 7 per level (7's a holy number, y'know), and a flat +10 piety per level up (which effectively means it's not nearly as urgent to worship him at level 1). Maybe increase undead killing piety to +2, if that change reduces piety gain too much.

I'd kind of like to see JJ's initial WEYTWUT glyph given a lower MP cost, like 5 or 6. It would be both a nice incentive to make him your starter (as opposed to Mystera/Binlor then convert for instant Petition) and would also increase piety gain. Plus it's a handy utility glyph. And since Mystic Balance reduces its cost to 6, and it's probably an overpriced glyph anyway, I think it works out pretty well. I might also add some weakening or corrosion healing (1 or 2 levels of one or the other per use, at most) to his Boost boons so that you can start to recover from his initial punishments a bit quicker, without having to rush to Chaos Avatar.

EDIT: To add to my GG suggestion, I'd also reduce piety from item conversion, to reduce the effectiveness of what is admittedly a cheesy strategy: "level 1, everything must go so I can max out Absolution." Something like +1 piety for small items, +3 piety for large items (and potions and small glyphs, for the Wizard's sake), and +7 piety for evil items (APHEELSIK, BLUDTOPOWA, Venom Dagger, Vampiric Sword) would be appropriate, given that your level up piety is higher right away. That staves off the huge power boost (Absolution + Humility) until level 2-3, unless you convert absolutely everything. Although it might lead to a long run deficit... If necessary, reduce Enlightenment to 80 piety and maybe taking that boon gives you an extra +1 piety for every prayer bead. (Okay, now that's a total overhaul!)

Glowing Guardian: The consensus seems to be that he's too good, but I'm not convinced that the problem is with Rogues instead of GG. Absolution taxes your inventory and 'soft' xp in a very interesting way and I'd hate to see it go.

Absolution is only a "tax" if you're increasing the XP gains of monsters. Removing 5-10 monsters worth 1 XP each from play is unlikely to cost you a leveling threshold. If you have slow, learning, or the wicked guitar at your disposal that may be another matter, but by default this is not the case.

The real problem with GG is that he's too good at low levels. Absolution is absolutely crazy at level 1-2 where it can bring up to 50 HP. Furthermore, his long-term piety gain is significantly higher for those who begin worship immediately, and humility needs to be leveraged as eary as possible to be a real gain. GG is very tame if you don't find him before level 3.

He's not useless as a higher-level find; protection is still a killer end-game boon now that the real cost is the prayer bead (which isn't a huge deal in the end-game since you're usually converting useless junk at this point, which is more GG piety!)

Earthmother: I like Earthmother, but can't justify using her for anything but novelty trick shots. She stone cold does not work on VICIOUS dungeons. They seem to be designed to thwart her. They feature long straight corridors where even a single plant can completely cut you off (Clearance does not help, because you need to clear a specific plant, not ten random ones). The mutliple screens means that Greenblood will never be useful. Her best power, the Clearance mana spike, cannot be used on any of the VICIOUS dungeons, either because you get cut off from your plants or because the boss has Retaliate: Fireball.

These are very good points, though she's still a useful piety farm with conversion antics.

Something really needs to be done about EM desecration. She gets desecrated more than she gets worshipped, and that's a problem when every other god has serious downsides associated with doing this.

JJ: I'm just not feeling it. Petition is too expensive and is just not interesting. I've tried ignoring it and it is never worth it. There isn't any sense of choice like you have with the other gods. Maybe if Petition gave you some kind of minor bonus for every punishment that you've endured, a la Patches? That way, the longer you let yourself suffer, the more power you get rewarded with.

You cannot play without petition, end of story. A badly-timed health drain or mana burn is a game-ender. Because petition cuts so heavily into JJ's lifetime piety generation, you need to find him very, very early to get him to work. This means his altar is usually dead-weight if you've explored more than 1/3 of the map. If any god needs serious attention, it's Jehora.

JJ has taken one too many nerfs in my opinion. The increase to petition's piety cost and his decreased piety generation, in conjunction, means you have to wait a long time before you get your first boon and it's really risky as to whether you will ever be able to hit chaos avatar (much less convert out afterwards). This has killed JJ an option outside of optimal situations. Where you do have enough piety to get your boosts and still make it to chaos avatar he rocks out, but if you cannot do that he's garbage.

I'd also be nice if using chaos avatar kept any partial progress you had towards level-ups. Last Chance could also use a buff; there are quite a few more "full restore" boons than there used to be, so at any piety level where it has a decent chance of success it's not a very good expenditure.

Binlor: Stone Heart really needs to go back to affecting hidden monsters. The changes to how Binlor uses walls has really brought this boon in line and now it is over nerfed. I've tried to use it and I've always regretted it.

Totally agreed; Stone Heart is way too wall-intensive to use unless you just want magic resist and will be converting out shortly. By the time you've revealed enough targets to make a 5% global erosion effect worthwhile, there's no longer enough blackspace to fuel Binlor.

Pactmaker: Does anyone use Spirit Pact?

I'm still asking that same question. The numbers are just so bad that it could cost 0 piety and I'd still avoid it because the other pacts would be so much better. It's just too hard to find a sufficient number of things to convert to trigger the damn pact.

All his other boons are within reason, appealing to different kinds of characters. Spirit Pact is just out of the ballpark.

And while we're here: Mystera needs a buff to mystic balance and weakening.

Binlor: Agree with Darvin and Sidestepper on Stone HeartSpirit Pact: I can't remember using this, which isn't a good sign.Darvin's points on Mystera: Yes to Mystic Balance, no to weakening, since it makes quite a big difference and Mystera spits out so much piety that you can afford to sink it.Darvin's points on JJ - absolutely.

Note that with the Mana booster thing, you have +3 mana and petition for 65/70ish piety (45 spent while being poison/corroded/whatever) and 1 mana potion, right? By contrast, going for 3 mana from Mystera is 75 piety, no potion, no debuffs and Mystera's a little more transparent with piety gain+Health doesn't compare brilliantly to absolution either. Basically, I think JJ's boons are really not good for the piety cost at the moment.

My suggestion would be:1) cheap boost health and mana - make these 10(+15 or 20) each or so. That way, you'd have a sort of inclination to sink into one of them dead early at the risk of a later petition and they'd compare favourably in piety terms to safer gods which don't require potion sacrifice to boost your stats. (So 25 or 30 piety would get 6 mana, 40 or 50 piety would get 9... it'd be strong, yes, but for 3 potions and the additional 45 of petition it's not absurd...). Given there are generally more stat-building things now than there were when he got nerfed, I think his uniqueness has taken a bit of a hit.

If JJ wasn't horribly monogamous and didn't come with a general-use prep drawback, I think these boosts might be a balance risk. I think if he offered bigger or more accessible mid-game stat-boosting rather than just a climb to the anticlimactic Chaos Av. + last chance he'd be an interesting call on vicious. Additionally, might not be bad to have a couple more varieties of health and mana-monsters around.

A smaller thing is that the Paladin misses out on a couple of his advantages with JJ since his punishments are irregular and last chance just eats all your piety.

Pactmaker - Spirit pact is really overpriced compared to the other stuff. I really wish one of the dev's would just explain what's up with that even if it ends with us breaking the game for a short while - just about every pro agrees on this, we analysed it in-depth to the best of our abilities, offered solutions and everything... What's the justification for this? What are we missing? Warriors pact, the healthmongering one is also something I'd never use - body pact is just plain better and does mostly the same thing - I'd suggest some sort of rework there because of functional overlap.

GG - too front loaded. Rogue, who is waaaay too front loaded (see upcoming video about him specificaly, 95% less whining), just makes it obvious. The only real problem is absolution - it's either too cheap, or gives too much health, or both. Gaining such an advantage (even just 5 hits gives you 15 health and 5% magic res for an inventory slot) at lvl one, with par-of-course humility waiting around the corner, makes other, powerful, stuff in the same vein look bad.

Mysterea - Mystic balance is possibly overpriced, though by how much I can't say. Cheaper fireballs are good. Weakening is incredible and lets Mysterea spellcasters go monotheistic and not regret anything - I've been going Mysterea just for the weakenings often.

Earthmother - Clearance giving 10 mana makes it better for wizards and paladins above anyone else, and those two are priviledged enough as it is. Multi-form or multi level bosses screw greenblood over too hard. Like the fact she's being discussed and support all suggestions about "counters" wholeheartedly.

JJ - I've been using him a lot, and when you need him, you really want him. However, he's pretty much unplayable without petition - which I don't know what to think about. Chaos avatar is lackluster and what I would preffer would be if it simply gave out a consumable item, which when consumed or converted gave you the effect - it's easy to reach the threshold, but the timing issues make the boon loose a lot of it's oomph. As for the health and mana boosting boons - again, timing issues and piety gain specfics make me whish it took the OTHER kind of potions (possibly 2 per pop), so you could get more mileage out of paying for petition on top of whichever boon you really wanted (and not feel like you need to be playing the potion races to make up for it - elves are underplayed in my book simply for the lack of potions).

Binlor - I don't know what you guys are going on about... My major complaint with him is that he is 100% too good any way you look at him, except that you can't really do anything about it because playing cramped maps with and without him is like playing a whole different game, and he provides a certain PISSORF for those who want a certain PISSORFF. Otherwise he's probably the best piety farm, he ham-fistedly helps you with cramped maps by eliminating the maps as such, he gives out loads of low investment magic resistance, gives knocback in mele and magic forms, is easily desecratable if for whatever reason you don't want either him or resists, and so on and so forth... He's one of those things that I can't moan about needing nerfs because it doesn't look like it needs explaining that he's too good - they made him that way intentionaly, and at least the PQI and the quests don't mandate me using him so I can play the game and pretend he doesn't exist, and make a note of those places which force me to reach for him and complain about THEM.

Warriors pact, the healthmongering one is also something I'd never use

It's one of his weaker pacts, but it's quite useful for Rogues or anyone with low HP and it's easy to trigger. I wouldn't be opposed to a buff, but it's not a high priority item.

. The only real problem is absolution - it's either too cheap, or gives too much health, or both. Gaining such an advantage (even just 5 hits gives you 15 health and 5% magic res for an inventory slot) at lvl one, with par-of-course humility waiting around the corner, makes other, powerful, stuff in the same vein look bad.

My suggestion is to make it work on lower level monsters rather than equal-or-lower. This means you couldn't use it at all until you reach level 2.

Mysterea - Mystic balance is possibly overpriced, though by how much I can't say. Cheaper fireballs are good

Agree that the fireball cost reduction is good, but this is pretty much all MB has going for it. Aside from this, the only glyphs it benefits are CYDSTEPP, WEYTWUT, and ENDISWAL. That's a disappointingly narrow selection of glyphs and it leaves this boon over-specialized.

Earthmother - Clearance giving 10 mana makes it better for wizards and paladins above anyone else, and those two are priviledged enough as it is.

Wizards, understandable. Paladins lose the ability to convert, and unless Pactmaker is on the field they're losing out on a lot to go with EM so I see no issue there.

JJ - I've been using him a lot, and when you need him, you really want him.

Agreed, he's quite powerful when he's in his optimal situation. However, that often involves prepping him so you get him immediately, and prepping burn cure/fortitude potions to clear off his punishments. This negates most of his downsides, while finding him legitimately brings up a host of issues that aren't present when you prep him.

I don't know what you guys are going on about...

Issue being "complained" about is that the primary effect of Stone Heart (resistance erosion) is very clunky and of minimal use. I totally agree with you on the point of Binlor being an overwhelming advantage for "opening up" the map, but that's that the specific thing that was discussed.

Stone Heart: Used to be great, now I never use it. It was hit after I was abusing it, but since they nerfed it to hit visible monsters AND Binlor to hit visible walls, it sucks.

JJ: Basically a lamer version of alpha pactmaker. Lame late game, good early game, and VERY BORING. Honestly, I don't use him because the challenge of not using him is more interesting than playing around with him.

GG: Like Darvin's suggestion for absolution, and that's really the only problem IMO.

Pactmaker: Eh, don't really use him except for consensus. I just don't like my piety being constantly drained, not to mention I forget about it and it screws me over.

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